


Two For One

by monobuu



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Familiars, M/M, Magic, Multi, Witchcraft, Witches, tomfoolery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2019-08-13 21:52:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16480430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monobuu/pseuds/monobuu
Summary: So what if Tony's only half witch? He's going to get his familiar the old fashioned way.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired from the first episode of Sabrina, when she gets her familiar Salem. 
> 
> Currently a stand-alone piece, but I may do a few more bits and pieces from this universe. We'll see.

“You’re going to _what?_ ”

Tony sighed internally as he took a long sip from his straw. The coffee he’d ordered was cold on his tongue, sweet on his taste buds, and it let him stall a bit for time.

Tony knew this particular decision would get him some looks, but being half-mortal on a campus for young witches and warlocks, all from either very prestigious covens or families, he already got his fair share of looks _(and taunts, jibes, pranks, curses, a general feeling of being an outcast, you know, the usual)_ – so really, what was a few more? His last name may come with fame, riches, and world-wide renown in the mortal world, but here in the Dark Realm, where witches and goblins and all manner of supernatural ran freely, the name Stark meant absolutely nothing.

Still. Tony figured Jan, at the very least, would understand. Or judge him less harshly.

“I’m not doing anything outrageous,” Tony argued, tone heated as his hackles rose. _For once_ , he silently added in his head. They were in a café that sat on campus, so the multitude of students surrounding them meant he couldn’t raise his voice too high or he’d risk being overheard.

“Debatable,” Jan said, and Tony felt his mouth twitch up into an almost smile despite himself.

“Witches used to choose familiars this way all the time,” he continued, because interruptions or not, he was going to explain his reasoning to someone who would actually listen to them. Instead of brushing them off as ‘fantasies for the naive’ as a certain bald, red-faced Dean of students had done.

“The rise of domesticated and trained familiars is only a recent phenomenon, and it only gained popularity _after_ the covens established the IWQT protocol for all Spellwork Academies and Alchemic Institutions, and everyone knows the entire reasoning behind _that_ was to more closely regulate who can and cannot enter their schools.”

Jan blinked at him placidly. Her own familiar, a very common but nonetheless beautiful raven named Wasp, didn’t blink at all from her position on Jan’s shoulder. She just stared at him. It was a little creepy sometimes, but he’d gotten mostly used to it.

“And I’m already _here_ ,” Tony finished vehemently, focusing on Jan again as he smashed his pointer finger _pointedly_ into the table to make his point abundantly clear. “They can’t kick me out because I’m choosing my familiar the old-fashioned way.”

Which was true, to an extent. Tony had lucked out; his intelligence meant he’d actually applied for and passed the entrance exams to The Shield Academy a good two years earlier than every other student, which meant he hadn’t had a familiar when he’d been accepted. Familiars were chosen on one’s eighteenth birthday and never before. That meant it generally happened within the last two years of high school, after which young witches and warlocks would apply to their chosen school of witchcraft. The entire business of choosing already-domesticated familiars from training facilities was to better one’s chances at getting into their school of choice. Acceptance committees had been known to use familiars as excuses not to let certain students in.

A boon for Tony, certainly, as they’d had to entirely discard that aspect of his testing due to his young age. And now, two years into his studies and secure in his place at the Academy, it was finally time for him to choose his familiar. In Tony’s mind, it made little sense to encourage the entire system of capturing, training, and then selling spirit animals when the primary reason for doing so had passed him by two years ago. Besides, there was also that little itch in the back of his head that told him this was the way to go.

Jan tilted her head to the side as she considered him and Wasp did the same, the two of them eerily in sync. “Tony, your heritage,” and here she held up her hands as Tony automatically reared up in protest, “I know, I know, but it _does_ make you a target already. Not only for the other students, but for the faculty as well. We all know there are some traditionalists who think you shouldn’t have even been admitted in the first place.”

“Shouldn’t they like that I’m being traditional about this, then?” Tony asked cheekily, knowing full well that’s not how things worked in the upper echelons of the covens. Jan ignored it entirely, which wasn’t actually a surprise.

“And what if you end up like Scott, hmm?” she asked instead.

Scott Lang, a young warlock who hadn’t had the money to spend on a trained familiar and so hadn’t exactly had a choice in how he attained one, had ended up with a very polite, but also very _tiny_ carpenter ant as his familiar. He caught his fair share of taunting about it, but it never seemed to bother him too much.

Possibly because, unknown to most and certainly unknown to Jan, Scott had a particular spell that he was aces at – shrinking. The Academy had rules about invisibility spells, but they didn’t have rules about spells that made you so small you _might as well be_ invisible. Scott could shrink to such a degree that he actually rode Antony like a horse.

A horse with wings. That nobody could see.

The dirt he had on people was unbelievable.

Tony shook his head, bringing himself back to the present. “That’s not going to happen,” he assured Jan. Partly because Tony was convinced Calling for a familiar in the wild helped to find a spirit naturally complementary to one’s own skillset. Scott got a bug because of his affinity for shrinking. His mother, the witch half of his heritage, had gotten a spider to aid with the delicate spells she would weave as easily as Tony breathed. His uncle Jarvis had an owl to help with his mastery of the oldest spells known to the coven.

“I don’t know, Tony,” Jan hedged, not entirely convinced.

“I’m not trying to knock getting a familiar from an institution designed to train them,” Tony assured. He gestured to Wasp. “Your bird is a perfect match for you.”

Wasp hopped down onto the table with a minimal flutter of her wings, and Jan ran a preening finger over the bird’s head.

“And it isn’t like I can’t afford it,” Tony continued. They both knew what Tony was worth back in the mortal realm, and mortal wealth transferred into the Dark Realm with a surprising amount of ease, despite everything else being so difficult it often took years to get anything done.

“But my gut is telling me to Call,” Tony said finally, his voice lowering. “And Maria told me to always trust my instincts.”

Jan’s face softened. She knew Maria almost as well as Tony did, which is to say, regrettably, not very much. His mother had died when Tony had been a mere boy, in a car accident that had also taken his father.

“If you think it’s what you should do,” Jan said eventually. “Then I support you.”

Tony crouched down to mouth at his straw, touched by Jan’s support, even if it had been hard-won. “Thanks,” he said with a smile, and meant it.

-d-b-

Tony used both the impending nightfall and the fact that half the professors were at a training seminar to sneak out and into the vast expanse of forest bordering the north edge of campus. It had been a few days since his conversation with Jan, and yesterday’s unscheduled run-in and subsequent lecture from Professor Stern had convinced Tony sooner was better than later. Dusk was a good time for spells, and with the light slowly fading, Tony made sure his little camping light was hooked securely on his bag.

The Calling spell wasn’t terribly difficult – it was meant to be a spell that new witches could accomplish easily, after all – and could be done in any forest. Tony had even heard a rumor that a witch had managed to summon one in Central Park, though how they’d managed to do so unnoticed remained a mystery.

Tony found a large, discarded branch and picked it up, idly snapping off the smaller twigs still attached as he walked further into the woods, looking for a clearing that might work well for his summoning spell. He wouldn’t actually be summoning an animal, but a spirit of knowledge and power that would take on the guise of an animal to better aid their witch master. The older and wiser the spirit, the bigger the animal, or so it was generally believed. The Dean’s familiar was a hulking, awkward-looking vulture that was nonetheless known to be a deadly menace if Mr. Pierce so chose. Many of the higher Coven members had wolves and bears, large and deadly animals as their familiars.

Then again, Tony had always believed his mother’s familiar to be incredibly, _intricately_ powerful, and she could hold Rana easily in her palm, so maybe a familiar’s size had nothing to do with anything after all..

As he came into a fairly open clearing, he let his bag drop to the forest floor, crouching to dig out the bell he’d brought with him before rising again. He used his shoe to clear leaves away from a small patch of ground, then stood up straight and held up the bell.

He rang it once.

“Spirits of the forest, I pronounce my intentions to thee,” he intoned, drawing a circle into the soft dirt with the branch he’d found earlier. “Come forth and seek me, and equal we will be.”

He rang the bell again.

“Not master and servant, but familiar to familiar,” he continued, going over the circle again, retracing his lines. “To share our knowledge, our spirit, and our traits.”

As he finished the last verse of his spell, he drew a line from the inside to the outside of the circle, breaking it and releasing the spell.

He rang the bell one last time.

“And now, spirits,” Tony said, looking around nervously. “We will wait.”

To be honest, Tony hadn’t known what to expect to happen once he’d finished the spell, but he hadn’t expected to have to wait terribly long. The forest was silent around him as the seconds ticked by and just as Tony was beginning to think he’d actually made some sort of mistake in his spellwork, the sound of footsteps approaching made him whirl around.

He’d hoped to see his brand new familiar.

What he got was Tiberius Stone.

Tony scowled. “What are you doing here, Ty?”

Ty was not so much Tony’s nemesis as he was an eternal asshole and unceasing annoyance. He’d dated the guy for a month when he’d first gotten to the Academy and all he’d gotten for his efforts was a black eye Jan had helped him cover in makeup for a week and two broken fingers for the punch he’d given Ty in return. The big, broad blond had backed off for a month before he’d come knocking again, and Tony had been finding new and creative ways of turning him down ever since.

“Watching you fail, apparently,” Ty said, his voice just shy of mocking. “You can’t even summon a familiar? My poor little half-breed.”

Tony let the insult slide off him, used to such barbs by now, and tilted his head, planting both hands on the top of his stick. “You think insulting me will get me into your bed? I’m surprised _your_ familiar, isn’t a goldfish, Ty. You barely have two brain cells to rub together.”

“You need me, Tony,” Ty growled, taking an intimidating step towards Tony. Ty’s familiar was a snake, aptly named Snake because Ty was an uncreative twit, and he was currently coiling himself around Ty’s shoulders, raising himself up so that he, too, could glare at Tony. “Your freak blood won’t get you anywhere in the Dark Realm. You’ll be eaten alive without me.”

“Funny you should say that,” Tony sneered, and he had a zinger all lined up and ready to fly, but before he could lay into Ty with another insult to his intelligence, a huge shadow came streaking out of the trees from Tony’s right, accompanied by the most blood-curdling snarl Tony had ever heard.

Tony jumped back and away, startled into an undignified squeak that he would forever deny as the shadow plowed into Ty and sent him sprawling onto the ground. Tony took one, two steps backward before the shadow materialized enough in his frozen, panic-filled mind for him to realize what it actually was. A giant wolf, with jet black fur and shiny white teeth that gleamed very nicely in the scant light of Tony’s lantern. Because the wolf was growling, snarling, and generally drooling all over Ty’s face. If Tony weren’t halfway to disbelief already, he’d probably have giggled at the idea of Ty’s face being covered in wolf spit.

As things stood, however-

“Oh my god,” Tony whispered, eyes darting back and forth. Was this his familiar answering his Call? Could it be possible that he would deserve a spirit this powerful? Was he secretly a badass?

Tony could just make out Ty’s figure under the wolf’s bulk, and he could hear his whimpers, his sniffles and ragged breathing. And he could hear Ty’s snake. Tony’s eyes widened, but before he could shout out a warning - for Snake or for the wolf who might be his familiar, Tony wasn’t sure - Snake lunged. He went for the wolf’s face with a loud hiss, only to be caught in powerful jaws. The wolf jerked his head violently and then tossed the snake familiar negligently aside. When it hit the ground, it didn’t move.

“Hoooooooh my god,” Tony whispered, a mixture between fright and glee twisting together in his stomach.

Tony took another step back, then another, until he ran into something large, furry, and warm. His eyes widened on the scene in front of him, because the wolf was still standing over a whimpering Ty, snarling and drooling and-

“Oh shit,” Tony said weakly, eyes closing as he tried to will himself awake from what was clearly turning into a nightmare. If there was another wolf, it meant they weren’t familiars. Only one spirit ever answered a Call, and if this was an entire pack of monstrous wolves? Tony didn’t like his odds.

“Please,” Tony whispered. “Please be a giant, moss-covered tree shaped like a-”

Tony turned his head slowly.

“Wolf,” Tony squeaked.

He had backed into the hind end of another black wolf who, _again_ , was larger than he _(or was it a she? Did it matter? A lady wolf would find him just as delicious)_ had any right to be. This one was curved forward, his snout facing Ty and the first wolf, and as Tony watched, mind racing around what to do should this one turn on him, the second wolf moved. Ignoring him entirely.

The wolf brushed almost his entire right side against Tony as he passed, moving forward and stalking right up to the other wolf. Tony let out a shaky breath, not sure what was going on at this point. Should he run? Should he watch Ty get mauled to death?

“Don’t hurt me,” Ty pleaded, his voice high and frightened.

The second wolf barked once, a loud, vicious snap, and Ty closed his mouth immediately. The first wolf eased off, backed up so that the two wolves were standing side by side between Tony and Ty. The second wolf growled lowly, hunching his shoulders, and Ty crab-walked slowly away from them, as if moving slow enough would mean they might not see what he was doing.  

The first wolf snarled suddenly, vicious and loud, lunging at Ty, and the man fell, scrambled around and onto his feet and took off into the oncoming night, disappearing from Tony’s sight in seconds. The lung had been a feint, because as Ty disappeared, neither of the wolves chased after him. Instead, they both turned on Tony.

“Well, shit,” Tony said.

 _Don’t be afraid,_ wolf one said, and Tony froze. He glanced behind him, to the side, the other side, then slowly refocused on the wolves.

“Did you-?” he asked.

 _Just save your ass?_ wolf two asked sarcastically. _Yeah._

Wolf one huffed and Tony didn’t know _how_ he knew, but he did. He knew that that huff right there, the one followed by a shake of wolf one’s majestic mane of dark fur, meant wolf one was disappointed in wolf two. But that would only work if…

Tony scrunched up his face, fingers going to his temple as he asked, “What the hell is going on?”

 _You Called,_ wolf one said.

 _And we answered,_ wolf two finished.

“Hmm,” Tony hummed. “Nope, no. Impossible. Two spirits can’t answer a Call, only one can-”

 _We come as a set,_ wolf one said, interrupting Tony’s vehement denials.

 _Yeah, like salt and pepper shakers,_ wolf two added.

“Uh,” Tony said, trying to wrap his mind around the fact that two spirits – two incredibly large, intimidating, _deadly_ spirits – had answered his Call. Together. At the same time. Because they came as a set, apparently, as if he was shopping on goddamn amazon for familiars.

“Do you have names?” Tony asked, because okay. Tony stark, half-breed witch who everyone on campus thought would fail out of Spellwork Academy or end up in some all-powerful warlock’s soup, had just summoned two familiars out of the wild. Sure. Let’s go with that.

 _Steve,_ wolf one said.

 _James,_ wolf two said.

Tony blinked at them. “I think I liked Wolf One and Wolf Two better.”

 _You can call me Bucky,_ James offered, mouth dropping open into what looked like a doggy grin. _And you can call him Spot._

 _Not funny,_ Steve growled.

 _Lassie?_ James tried again, clearly enjoying himself.

Steve nipped at him and James hopped up onto all fours to dodge nimbly, coming towards Tony. _Call him Mister Ed,_ James said easily, and Tony could hear the laughter in James’ tone, even if his voice was only in his head.

 _I’m not a horse, asshole,_ Steve said.

Tony couldn’t help but smile as he secured the strap of his bag on his shoulder.   

_Have you seen a mirror, Steve?_

Tony started walking back towards campus, idly wondering how he was going to sneak these two giant bickering puppies back into his dorm room - before realizing he didn’t have to sneak them anywhere. He had two familiars, which was way better than anything the training leagues could have offered him if he’d caved to the pressure from the Dean and his lackeys. He was going to walk proudly across campus, bracketed by James and Steve and rub it in their faces.

Tony yawned widely through the happy grin that particular thought brought to his face.

 _Sleep_ , Steve said, brushing up against his right side. Tony glanced down, then over to see James trotting on his left, tongue hanging out.

“It’s not that late,” Tony said, arguing just for the sake of arguing.

 _Sleep,_ Steve insisted, and Tony didn’t argue with him as he led the way back to his dorm room. Everyone else on campus was doing as Steve suggested, only a few windows here and there shining with lights from the night owls.

Tony had a solitary dorm room, something his father’s money had been able to procure for him, and so he didn’t have to worry about explaining Steve and James to anyone as he opened his door and stepped in. James began sniffing around, but Steve jumped right up on Tony’s bed and curled up at the foot, eyes open and watching Tony pointedly.

Tony shucked his clothes off and, left only in his boxers, climbed under the covers. Steve resettled over his feet, head curled so that it rested on Tony’s hip. Not a moment later James jumped up to join them, settling down so that he was between the door and Tony, head resting on Tony’s shoulder as he leaned heavily into Tony’s side.

“Guys,” Tony said. “How am I supposed to sleep with you two using me as your own personal pillows?”

 _Safely,_ James said, then let out his own jaw-cracking and rather more vicious-looking yawn before settling back down.

“Okay, wickedly sharp jaws of death or no, you have some serious dog breath, James.”

James’ head popped back up and he managed to look insulted, much to Tony’s amusement. Steve let out a chuff of laughter but didn’t move other than to snuffle into the covers over Tony’s hip and close his eyes.

Tony thought he’d managed the last dig, but as soon as he closed his eyes, James licked him from chin to forehead, catching part of his hair with his tongue and tugging it straight up into a cowlick - or a wolflick, as was the case. That was going to look lovely tomorrow.

“Thanks,” Tony mumbled sarcastically.

 _Your welcome,_ James said, then settled in to sleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [licks]


	2. Chapter 2

Tony’s head was buried firmly in his folded arms, shoulders hunched over where he was exuding as much misery as he could possibly manage, when he heard the chair beside him scrape loudly across the tiled floor. Someone sat down next to him, and he heard the gentle click-click of bird claws on the table he was throwing his silent tantrum at before a hand speared gently through his hair. He didn't move, even at the gentle nudging.

“Okay, what’s wrong?” Jan asked abruptly.

That was probably Tony’s favorite quality of hers. Efficient, sometimes brutal, bluntness when it came to Tony’s – or anyone’s, really – problems. The campus was filled with problems, from dating woes to explosions in the lab, and Jan was an expert at navigating most of them. This one, however, would not be helped by a tarot reading.

He raised his head up from his arms, looked at his friend with full blown puppy eyes, as sad as he could make them, and watched as Jan’s gaze hardened predictably.

“Who do we need to maim?” Jan asked, setting the second of two coffees she had brought with her down before leaning in intently. “Is this a Platypus-Level problem? Do I need to call Rhodes?”

Tony shook his head. “I did the Call last night,” he explained, reaching for one of the coffees. Wasp didn’t drink coffee and Tony was utterly _alone_ this morning, so it had to be for Tony.

Jan’s face softened into something bordering on pity and she leaned back. “Oh, Tony, I told you to be careful, that you might not get what you were hoping for if you didn’t-”

Tony shook his head again, straightening in his seat as more students began milling about. They were in the quad – or at least what passed for the quad in Dark Realm campuses. This one was enclosed by tinted glass that gave it a sort of dark, magical greenhouse vibe, with cafés and bistros and apothecaries interspersed between the entrances to the buildings that housed classrooms. He always met Jan here before classes began in the morning, and he’d been up so early today that he’d actually had time to snag their usual spot and spend exactly 47 minutes in abject misery before she’d shown up.

“No, no, that’s not it,” Tony argued, taking a sip from his coffee. “It went great, amazing really. That’s not the problem.”

Jan grinned. “That’s great, Tony! I’m so happy for you, did you bring them with? Is it a boy or a girl? What kind of animal is it? I wanna meet them!”

“That’s,” Tony started, hedging. “That’s the problem.”

Jan raised her eyebrow.

“Uh,” Tony said. “I lost them.”

Or rather, they’d  _run away._  Tony had very vivid memories of going to sleep with two giant wolves keeping him warm in bed, only to wake up to an empty dorm room and not a single thing out of place to even suggest they’d ever been there to begin with. It was like Steve and Bucky had just vanished, and while it would have to be an incredibly complicated, intricate spell to pull off, it wasn’t entirely  _impossible_  that someone on campus had used their juju to make him hallucinate the whole thing. Or perhaps it had been a dream.

It had  _felt_  real enough at the time. But where had his familiars gone? He'd never heard of a familiar that just... abandoned their witch.

“You…” Jan began loudly, snapping Tony out of his spiral into 'what ifs,' then leaned in so she could whisper judgmentally at him. “You lost your familiar!?  _How_  do you lose your familiar?!”

“I don’t know?” Tony said. “Do you think it’s because I never had a pet when I was a kid? I thought familiars were supposed to hang around and keep you company and help you with spells and maybe give you cuddles and not run off within the first twenty-four hours without even leaving a note. Do you think someone familiar-napped them? Am I under a spell? Have I been magicked!?”

Jan’s hands snapped out and grabbed his cheeks. “No. Focus, Tony, we need to-”

“Stark.”

Both of them straightened and looked up toward the voice and while Jan was able to keep a neutral, though a bit frosty, expression on her face as her hands dropped, Tony let his expression fall into an outright scowl. Tiberius fucking Stone. How thick could one person be?

“What do you  _want_ , Ty?” Tony growled. They were gaining the attention of a lot of the other students and while Tony wasn’t opposed to making a scene – and while he and Ty might have a  _slight_  reputation for dramatics - he was sort of in the middle of a crisis right now.

Ty cleared his throat and Tony’s eyes widened because the man almost looked like he was nervous. Ty was never nervous, or any other emotion other than arrogant. Ty glanced behind himself subtly and Tony followed his gaze, but other than a hoard of interested students, two of which looked almost gleeful in anticipation of what was to come, Tony didn’t see anything worth noting. He shifted his gaze back to Ty just in time to see him frown in disgust.

“I would like to…” Ty began haltingly, and Tony raised his eyebrows. Another nervous glance over his shoulder and Ty finished with, “…apologize.”

_What._

“What?” Jan asked.

“What?” Tony echoed.

Ty leaned in just a bit. “I will not repeat myself,” he bit out, then stalked off, pushing people out of his way if they didn’t move fast enough.

“The hell was that about?” Jan asked.

“I have no idea,” Tony said. “I mean, I do, I just don’t know why he- Did someone put a spell on him?”

Tony looked around. The students had started to break up, the confrontation sadly not as dramatic as they had clearly been hoping for. No one seemed inclined to stick around and Tony glanced at the giant clock that made up the centerpiece of the quad, surrounded by a pool of water that danced at certain intervals throughout the day, aided entirely by magic. It was almost time for first bell and Tony stood, gathering his bag.

“That was weird,” Jan said, following suit. “But can we focus on the real problem here? You can't go to class, you have to look for your familiar.”

Tony grabbed his coffee. “I already asked Professor Brunnhilde if I could be excused to look for them, but she just laughed at me.”

Wasp jumped up on Jan’s shoulder and they made their way towards their first class. “Sometimes she can be really mean.”

Jan snuck her arm around his waist and leaned into him, which was a comfort, even if a small one. “We’ll find ‘em, don’t worry. They’re your familiar, they can’t have gone far.”

\--

It took one whole period, plus forty-two minutes of the next before the whispers reached Tony and Jan’s classroom and the teacher was summoned via ancient landline telephone, to help advise whoever was on the other end.

“Hey, Stark,” Clint said once the teacher was on the phone, sitting on Tony’s desk with an easy grin. Clint’s familiar, a small hawk named Laura, sat on his shoulder in much the same way Wasp tended to sit on Jan’s. “Did you hear? We’re going on lockdown because someone summoned two fucking demon-spawn direwolves and just left them in the gym with a basketball for a fucking chew toy.”

Tony froze as Jan gasped.

“What?” Jan asked. “Direwolves? Really? No one's seen a direwolf in decades!”

Clint looked ecstatic. “Yeah, Bobbie said they’re way too big to be normal wolves, and-”

“In the gym, you said?”

Clint turned to Tony. “Yeah, man, but you can’t go in there, they’re not letting anyone out of their classrooms until the Dean can send them back where they came from. Bobbie got lucky and managed to peak in before they shooed everyone away.”

“Ah, shit,” Tony muttered.

“Tony?” Jan asked.

“You know that problem I was telling you about earlier?”

“What,” Jan said, confused. Wasp fluttered her wings sharply. “I don’t under-”

“Dude,” Clint crowed. “Did you summon two demons!?”

“Yes and no,” Tony said, standing.

“But, Tony,” Jan protested. “That doesn’t make any sense, if there’s two of them, how can-”

“I’ll explain later,” Tony said hastily, then turned to Clint, grabbing the backpack he still had slung over one shoulder and dislodging Laura abruptly. “Sorry, Laura. Clint, do me a favor and distract Mar-Vel, eh?”

Tony unzipped Clint’s bag, whispered a well-known spell into the tips of his pointer and middle fingers, then reached into the bag and found exactly what he was looking for – a pack of sweets. Clint never left the dorms without some form of high processed sugar hidden in his bag. He let the spell go.

“Tony, my homework’s in there!” Clint complained, but made absolutely no move to actually stop him.

Tony zipped the bag back up, counting down in the back of his head as he said, “We both know you didn’t do the homework, Clint.”

Tony winked, then tossed the bag into the front left corner of the room, right next to where the teacher stood, and finished his count.

“Three, two, one,” he said softly.

As Clint’s backpack erupted with thousands of tiny animated gummy bears intent on doing battle with anything they came in contact with - they were still squishy bears, though, totally harmless - Tony made his way towards the door, Jan close on his heels.

“Aw, gummies, no,” Clint whined, backing away from where the bears were beginning to scale his desk. The teacher was desperately trying to shout at them and stomp them with her feet, all while simultaneously continuing her phone conversation and in the confusion, Tony and Jan very easily slipped out the door.

There was no one in the hallways, the other teachers (who were not caught in a gummy bear invasion) had successfully locked down their classrooms. As they got closer to the gym, however, it was clear that the Dean had gathered the senior professors and were attempting to discuss solutions to the problem at hand. Without knowing who or why or for what purpose a demon, or demons, had been summoned, it was tricky sending them back. And depending on how powerful the demon was, potentially dangerous to those involved.

But Tony knew the truth. They weren’t demons at all, just two wayward familiars that were about to be in Big Trouble.

“Jan,” Tony said lowly as they approached. The three sets of double doors were all open and at least ten warlock professors were standing shoulder to shoulder as they discussed options, all with their backs turned toward them.

“On it,” Jan answered, and nudged the shoulder Wasp sat on. “Buzz ‘em, girl.”

Wasp took off from Janet’s shoulder, heading toward the right side of the gathered professors. Once she was within touching distance, Wasp let out her loudest alarm call – nothing like the burbling croaks she normally made – and flapped her wings chaotically at the men’s heads.

They reacted immediately, ducking away and raising their hands, but Wasp was too fast for them, buzzing them down the line so that each and every one was startled into jumping away by the time she was done. Tony had crept close enough that when they began to jump away from what had startled them, he was able to pick his moment precisely and slip through an opening before any of them had time to grab him.

“Mr. Stark!” the Dean called, once he noticed. “Get back here!”

Tony halted, about halfway between where the professors were gathering themselves with embarrassed grumbles and where his two wayward pups stood, growling and snapping in turns as they paced off and on, three deflated basketballs in front of them and what looked like a shredded gym mat off to the side. Their eyes all but glowed in the dim lighting, their hackles up and tails lashing. There had clearly been attempts at trapping them within a spell circle, the remains of which were smeared on the gym floor all around them. The professors had failed, obviously, and had retreated to the doorway to regroup.

 _I’ll bite that vulture’s head off,_  Steve was saying.

 _I call the drumsticks,_  Bucky added, teeth snapping.

Tony looked at the dean, his vulture familiar looming darkly from where he sat on on of the opened doors top edge.

“Those are dangerous beings,” the Dean warned, and while the words clearly illustrated Dean Pierce’s concern for Tony’s safety, Tony knew better than to think the Dean gave a single shit about his welfare.

Tony turned back to his familiars and narrowed his eyes in thought.

 _Do it, Boss,_  Bucky told him, eyes flashing.

“Let the half-breed go,” said Professor Zemo, and Tony almost scoffed out loud at how obvious the man was in his hatred. “Maybe the demons will do us all a favor and eat him.”

 _And do it quickly, before I bite that one’s face off,_  Steve growled, lunging forward a bit in a display of aggression.

“We cannot have a student perish on campus, professor,” Dean Pierce said.  _That would be bad press_ , Tony added silently. "Mr. Stark, you are not equipped to handle this level of spellwork. Get behind us immediately or you will risk more than just your life."

 _Can I eat that one?_  Bucky asked, and Tony tried not to grin outright at the scene he was about to make. He put his hands on his hips.

“Where have you two been?” Tony asked sternly, loudly, over the growling wolves.

Silence reigned abruptly. The two wolves stopped their aggressive posturing, their eyes dimmed until they were normal again, and they both sat down at the same time, in eerie synchronicity.

 _Look at their faces!_  Steve said gleefully, his butt doing a little bit of a wiggle as he sat and very nearly making Tony break into a giggle fit. No, he was supposed to be angry. He was definitely angry.

“Steve,” Tony intoned, reprimand heavy in his voice.

Steve dropped to the floor, put his head on his paws and whined, then belly crawled a few inches towards Tony before settling again. His face said ‘please forgive me’ but the emotions he was sending through their connection were distinctly unrepentant.

Tony turned to Bucky. “And you? What do you have to say for yourself?”

Bucky took the dramatics a step further, flopping onto the ground and rolling onto his back before wiggling with exaggeration. He flopped over once he was done, laying on his side next to Steve and looking up at Tony with what Tony could only describe as the Most Pathetic Puppy Eyes in the History of History.

"You can't just disappear for hours and expect me to forgive you because you're cute," Tony said seriously. It was a lie. A total and complete lie. He'd known these two murder puppies for less than a day and he already knew they would likely be able to cute their way out of anything where Tony was concerned.

 _Don't lie, Boss,_ Bucky said easily, tongue lolling out. 

 _It doesn't suit you,_ Steve added, licking the air in front of him happily.

“Mr. Stark, what is going on,” the Dean asked in a frustrated tone.

“I apologize, Dean Pierce,” Tony said, glancing back at the man just so he could take in the shocked faces of all the other professors around him. The Dean was much too shrewd to let his own emotions play across his face, but Tony knew he’d managed to shock the man nonetheless. “I will of course pay for any damage my familiars caused.”

“F-familiars!?” Zemo sputtered.

“Preposterous!” Stern said. “No half-breed could command such a powerful familiar, let alone two.”

“It’s unheard of!” Zemo added.

Bucky rolled out of his loose sprawl, teeth bared and muscles tense with intention, and Steve very pointedly turned his attention toward the two professors, ears pricked and forward, gaze narrowed. Stern and Zemo each took a step back, but the professor beside them stood his ground.

“Unlikely, yes,” the warlock said. “But not impossible.”

Tony had never had a class with Professor Schmidt, but he’d heard stories of how creepily intense he was. If the way he was looking at Steve and Bucky was any indication, the stories had all been true.

“Enough,” Dean Pierce said. “Mr. Stark, I will see that an invoice for the damage is sent to the appropriate people. Please make sure your…familiars...behave themselves in the future.”

“Of course,” Tony said, fighting hard to keep his tone polite and neutral when half of him wanted to giggle hysterically and the other half wanted to open up a portal into space and just float away.

“You two,” Tony said. “Let’s go.”

The two wolves stood simultaneously and trotted up to him, one on each side, and Tony made his way toward the gathered professors, who very politely, if not a little fearfully, stepped out of his way.

 _Can I bark at them?_ Bucky asked.

“No,” Tony said. “You’ve caused enough trouble.”

 _It would be funny,_  Steve complained on Bucky’s behalf.

 _I bet I could make that one in the back pee himself,_ Bucky agreed.

 _From the smell of it, he already has,_ Steve said slyly.

Tony let out a snort of laughter before reigning it in. The Dean was giving him a Look, capital ‘L’ and Tony really just wanted to get Jan and go back to class. Or his dorm. Wherever the Dean was not.

“Tony?” Jan asked softly as he came out of the gym entirely. Wasp was back on her shoulder and she had a hesitant smile on her face as she took in the two wolves that bracketed him.

“Jan,” Tony said, offering his arm. Steve moved a step away so that Jan could walk beside Tony, coming in close to Jan’s side instead as they made their way through the hall.

“How did you manage to get  _two_  familiars, Tony,” Jan asked, glancing from one wolf to the other repeatedly.

“They came as a set,” Tony said. “Like a Twix.”

 _I’m the left one,_  Steve said.

 _No, I’m the left one,_  Bucky argued.

 _I am literally walking on his left side,_  Steve sent back.

 _That’s not the point!_  Bucky said.

Tony just laughed as they made their way back to class.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woof!


End file.
